


lost love is sweeter (when it's finally found)

by petalloso



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual time skip, First Kiss, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, last summer before college
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24230929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petalloso/pseuds/petalloso
Summary: “You’re my best friend,” Eddie says. “I just think I would also like you as my—”“Boyfriend?” Richie grins.Eddie scoffs at that word, but he smiles all the same and then leans in to kiss Richie on the space right beside his mouth, not quite his chin or his cheek but close, the skin there soft but scruffy. This gesture is so familiar Richie almost aches with remembering.“Partners?” Richie goes on, when Eddie kisses him on the cheekbone. “Lovers?” Eddie kisses him on the nose.“One of those should work, yeah,” Eddie says, and instead of teasing him a little while longer like he probably meant to, he kisses Richie on the mouth.*repost
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 19
Kudos: 85





	1. i

**Author's Note:**

> this is a repost per request (edited from original) 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: recreational/underage drug use (weed), brief mention of animal death, nsfw language (mom jokes and also richie in general), richie gets beaten up, bloody nose and head injury, brief mention of weight loss, a slur, general internal strife, referenced emotional abuse (sonia), brief underage drinking

It just sort of falls into his lap—literally. His sister tosses him a plastic bag, calls it stale, and tells him to go buck wild. So he sticks the bag into an old shoe and the old shoe into his closet and at the next hangout he brings the old shoe with him. 

He extends his offering upon arrival. No one makes a move to accept it, which frankly offends him, so he shakes it for emphasis.

“I’m not touching that thing,” Eddie says. “It’s probably festering with foot fungus.” 

He shudders at the thought of it. He has the tiniest shoulders Richie has ever seen. Adorable. Richie tosses the shoe at him and he squawks like one of Stan’s birds and swats at it. It lands rather anticlimactically onto the dirt. 

“Maybe,” Richie says with a shrug, and grins. He leans down, picks out the plastic baggie and places it onto the ground, and they circle around to ogle. Ben kicks it gently and Richie slaps him, also gently. 

“Drugs,” Eddie says. 

Sure, yeah. He didn’t have to say it like  _ that  _ though, in that shuddery whisper he usually reserved for the most unsanitary, unpleasant of things. Richie opens his mouth to defend himself  _ and  _ his drugs but Stan speaks before he can get a word in. 

“I dunno, Richie,” he says, a hand to the back of his beautiful curly head. “I don’t think it’s safe.” 

“No shit,” Eddie says, and even though his voice dropped a million octaves at least three summers ago it goes all pipsqueak now the way it does when he’s all wound up like the music box in Richie’s living room.

Except when this particular music box unwinds it screams bloody murder instead of a lovely little tune. Richie’s favorite ever music box. He liked to wind it up. 

“I’ve heard this stuff can make you think you’re Jesus and get you put in a loony bin,” Eddie is rambling. “And that it makes you hallucinate, murder your whole family with a toothpick, then swallow it. I’m not touching it with a ten foot pole.” 

“Aw, Eds, don’t be like that,” Richie says. He tries to make his voice go all whiney. Sometimes it worked to soften him up. Right now it doesn’t seem to be doing the trick, which was kind of a bummer but Richie could work for it if he needed to. 

“I don’t think it's like that,” Mike says, may god bless him. “I think it just calms you down.”

“Ha! Between me and you Eddie could do with a bit of calming down.” 

“Shut up, Richie. I’ve never been more calm in my life!” 

He sort of shrieks it. Like a bushbaby. He has the eyes to match, too. Richie pinches his cheek and then makes an embarrassing sound when Eddie smacks him away, enough that Eddie rubs the spot in apology but glares at him regardless. The bushbabiness of his eyes mostly ruins the effect. Richie tries to look affected anyway. 

“I’ll d-do it,” Bill says at length. 

Richie puts a hand to his chest in mock surprise, except that he is genuinely a bit stunned by the proclamation, and so are the others given their sudden, complete silence. Bill doesn’t quite meet his eyes, but he picks up the bag and removes the joint with gentle fingers, holding it up in the center of the circle like something sacrificial. They continue to stare, wide-eyed, tentative. 

“Big Bill, I didn’t think you had it in you,” Richie says solemnly. 

“Only if y-you guys d-do, t-too.” 

Richie pulls an old lighter from his pocket. Ben, Mike and Stan only shrug their shoulders. Eddie looks like he might explode into bits, the little perpetual pipe bomb. So Richie throws an arm around him and pulls him closer, and he makes a little show of trying to escape but stops when Richie sticks his face into his hair, all his limbs softening like warmed dough, maybe even shifting a little closer. 

Richie’s heart does a little skip. He squeezes Eddie tighter. 

“You don’t actually have to, Eds,” he says, honest as a horse. Eddie must hear it, too. Because Richie was hardly ever honest like this and they both knew it. He saved honesty for special occasions like his mom saved the red wine for date nights. In his most humble opinion this was a pretty spectacular occasion. 

“If we stay together it’ll be safe,” Ben says sweetly. He’s right. Maybe it sounded a bit dramatic given the low-stakes circumstances, but Richie liked to hear it all the same– they did things together or not at all. 

As it turns out a single stale joint isn’t quite enough for six boys to get properly toasted. Roasted. Whatever the word was. Ben has a coughing fit and Richie thinks to make a joke involving Eddie and his once asmathic lungs. But he thought it seemed like a reach, and also might be a bit insensitive. They pass the joint around in a circle until it's a little nub, and then Richie tosses it onto the ground and kicks some dirt over it. 

Bill and Mike play finger war, which was like thumb war but with all their fingers instead of just the one and which mostly involved pressing their fingertips together and grunting. Stan and Ben stack rocks and then find elaborate ways to knock their tower over, which really only includes blowing on it as hard as they can and then knocking their heads into it when that fails. 

“I’m not sure I’m feeling anything,” Ben says, rubbing his forehead with a grimace, tower destroyed. 

“First sign that you’re high is denial,” Richie says. “So you’re definitely toasted enough to butter right now, buddy. Also you just used your own head as a wrecking ball.” 

“Oh,” Ben says, and begins to restack his fallen rocks. Richie watches them work for a little while longer, and then he lays down on the ground, cushions his head with his arms behind him, watches as Eddie lays down to join him but says nothing. 

“This is nice,” Eddie says. His voice is soft in a way Richie hasn’t heard before. 

“We’re not that high, dude,” Richie says, even though he just told Ben otherwise. He doesn’t mean to ruin it. And maybe it wasn’t totally true. In some weirdly bullshit way he thinks that it’s possible to get high off anything. So maybe his throat burned and maybe he felt weightless. It was summer. The cicadas buzz. The sky is pink. He was high off that. 

And Eddie is rolling over to look at him, a hand underneath one cheek, a dumb expression on his face. Richie wants to kiss him. It’s not an unusual thought, not totally unwelcome and easy to entertain, but it hurts a little bit to think about so he packs it up neatly, gently, and shoves it to a corner for safekeeping. 

“Sure,” Eddie says. “That’s why you’ve barely spoken the past half hour. I don’t think you’ve gone this long without talking since the womb.” 

“Aw,” Richie croons. “You missed my trashmouth.” 

Eddie just laughs, and Richie means to say something but his voice really has gone now. Like the time he got mono and lost it for a week in sixth grade and joked it was from all the girls he kissed. And even though Eddie wore a mask when he visited he was still pissed enough about that brag to wrestle the truth out of him, which was that he shared a straw with Tracy from the eighth grade. It was a chocolate milkshake. And she said he could have a bit. So sue him. 

“I’m hungry,” Stan is saying. He’s rounded up with a rock in each hand. Richie puts his hands over Eddie’s head to protect him from grievous injury, but Stan just drops them by his feet, miraculously not on a toe. “Let’s go eat something.” 

“Anything for you, Stanley darling,” Richie says. 

And so they gather the troops and march off to the Sunshine Diner. They each order a different flavor of pie and swap a sixth of the way through the slice, squeezed into a four seater booth even though they’ve grown since they first started coming here two summers ago. Richie still has growing pains sometimes, as though his legs weren’t gangly long enough already. But they make it work. They always do. 

“I miss Bev,” Richie says mid-bite. “Miss her cute little face and that disgusting flavor pie she used to order.” 

“You know we could just order a seventh slice,” Stan says. Richie puts a hand to his chest and gasps. 

“Without her! How dare you make such an atrocious suggestion?” 

“It c-could b-be an honorary thing,” Bill says. “Like a m-m-memorial.” 

“She’s not dead,” Eddie says, feeding Richie a forkful of his current cycle of pie. Mike gives him a look across the booth that he doesn’t know how to interpret. Richie chews with his mouth open. Maybe that’s it. Mike looks away. 

“I think it’s a good idea,” Ben says. “I’ll go order it.” 

And then he trots off to the front counter to ask for another slice of the pie Beverly always ordered. Richie feeds Eddie a too-large forkful of apple and laughs when the whipped cream gets on his nose. He swipes it off with his finger and sticks it in his mouth, then hands Eddie a napkin. 

“Would you stop doing that?” Stan says abruptly, pointing a fork at Richie like he’s challenging him to a duel. Richie clanks it with his own utensil, and they engage in a short battle, in which everyone at the table stops to watch. 

“You’re gonna have to clue me in,” Richie says. 

Stan wins, and Richie’s fork goes flying, landing in Mike’s lap. Richie hands him a napkin in exchange for his fork, and then feeds Eddie another bite of his slice. 

“Oh my god, that! Stop doing that!”

“Eddie and R-richie? ‘S p-pretty normal, S-s-tan,” Bill says. 

Richie warms a little at that, and feels very suddenly the way Eddie’s thigh is pressed into his, and that he’s wearing his ridiculously short shorts. The ones from track. Heck. There is a familiar pang of guilt, in which he feels like he should ask Eddie permission for something. 

“What the hell does  _ that _ mean?” Eddie says. But his thigh shifts, presses closer into Richie’s like some kind of reassurance. Richie swallows. There’s too much pie crust in his mouth. 

“You jealous, Stan? Promise I’m not cheating on you.” 

“Fuck off,” Stan says, not unkindly, and then flicks a bit of pie with his fork onto Richie’s face. Richie retaliates by reaching over the table and pouring syrup over his hand. Stan threatens to murder him. Par for the course. Richie shoots him a grin. And then Ben returns their savior with a plate of warm Beverly-inspired pie. 

And then it’s time to split and so they walk together, and they drop off one by one until it’s just Richie and Eddie. The sky is dark now but the curfew hasn’t been in effect for years, so it doesn’t much matter to Richie. He still walks on the street side of the sidewalk and close enough to brush the back of Eddie’s hand, to pull him in if something pops out of the dark like a jack in the box. He always hated those. 

“Did you put my pjs in with your laundry?” Eddie says beside him. 

“I sure did. Are you sleeping over?” 

“Yeah,” Eddie says. 

So Eddie sleeps over. He changes into the extra set of pajamas he keeps in Richie’s room, brushes his teeth with the toothbrush he keeps in the bathroom, steals half the bed and then some. Richie kicks at him until Eddie is forced to pin his too long legs down with his entire body to stop him. 

“I  _ will _ leave,” he says, but it’s an empty threat and they both know it. 

“Don’t go, Eddie. I can’t go on without you,” Richie says dramatically, but he halts his struggle. Eddie untangles their tangled limbs and plops down beside him. He looks up at the ceiling, his hands folded over onto his stomach, and the whole look sort of reminds Richie of a corpse in a casket, which makes his heart do gymnastics and not in a fun way, so he kicks at Eddie until he stops looking dead. 

Eddie looks at Richie. His face is serious, scrunchie like it gets when he’s thinking too hard, which is sometimes all the time. Richie puts a finger to his forehead and it smooths over, prompts him to say what he’s thinking. 

“Do you remember that one summer?” He says, and something unpleasant rumbles in Richie’s chest. 

He puts a hand to Eddie’s mouth and Eddie makes a grossed sound and pries him off. Once when Richie had done the same thing Eddie had licked it. Only once. Richie would never forget it because Eddie would never let him.  _ Oh my god. You don’t wash your hands, do you? I’m going to die now aren’t I?  _

He did actually wash his hands, with soap and a happy birthday tune and everything. He told Eddie as much but he had already been spiraling. But he hadn’t died, so. 

“That was ages ago,” Richie says. 

They were smaller back then, even though Eddie was still sort of small for his age and his mom would never shut the fuck up about it which made Richie furious to think about because it was her fault he never ate like he needed to as a kid. 

And they were stupider back then, and more scared than ever. And now they were set to leave Derry for greater things as soon as the summer ended. Well, maybe not so much  _ greater,  _ for Richie at least. But for something. He had yet to figure it out. He didn’t like to think about it. 

“I know,” Eddie says, and then shoves at Richie, who’s being a bit of a mouth breather and maybe a little bit on purpose. “‘S too fucking hot.” 

Richie grabs at Eddie and pulls him in closer again, squeezing him but gently so he can get away if he wants to. He doesn’t try. “I know, baby.” 

“Ugh, Richie. Get off.” 

“But I’m so fucking hot. You just said so.” 

“I’m going to strangle you.” 

“ _ That’s  _ hot.” 

“Be serious.” 

“I am being serious.” 

“No, you’re not,” Eddie says, pulling away but not far. “Do you remember that summer or not?” 

Richie stills. Eddie was really the only person who ever did manage to make him still. Like an untouched pond. He’s also the only one who can chuck a pebble into the water and cause a typhoon. 

“I remember,” he says softly. “I remember you broke your arm and scared the shit out of me.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “But I don’t think that’s the only reason we were scared.” 

“I don’t want to think about it,” Richie says honestly, because his head hurts, like someone is picking at it with a needle, dissecting, and thinking about Eddie with his arm broken, the way he screamed in pain, or maybe in fear, that hurts worse. 

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. 

Richie thinks, absently, that he and Eddie agreed more often than people thought. They weren’t just two butting heads— they were peas in a pod, like his mom always said when Eddie came over. Apple to his eye. What else? Surely there was more. He wished he was a poet but he could hardly crack a joke nowadays. 

Eyes like a doe. Skin like milk. Uh. 2 percent. 

Hell. Where did people get off writing poetry? He ought to ask Ben for some tips. Anyway Eddie tanned in the summer. He was more like the color of dust now, which was even less poetic than being compared to milk. 

He knows his brain is distracting him so he doesn’t have to think about how scared they were. How afterwards when Eddie got his cast removed his arm had been pale and floppy like a dead fish. And how Richie made Eddie walk the inside of the sidewalk, and slow his bike on the sharp turns, and felt guilty for being afraid for him because he knew enough of that from his mother already, but also how easy it was to die. 

He laughs, a nervous and afraid sound. Eddie looks at him strangely. 

“What’s so funny?”

He sounds sort of defensive, but there’s something soft in his expression like maybe he knows, and Richie can’t really stand to see it so he buries his face in Eddie’s neck and Eddie makes a small, surprised noise that doesn’t much help the matter. But at least Richie feels less afraid at the seconds pass. He could place his fingers to Eddie’s pulse so easily, and feel him breathing, and he would be reassured. 

“Your face,” Richie mumbles in answer. And usually Eddie would pull at his hair in retaliation for something like that, but now he just cards his fingers through it instead and Richie makes a noise he regrets and Eddie laughs. 

“You’re such a dumbass.” 

“Mmph,” Richie says, because he’s too lazy to argue and also he was right, and then he blows a raspberry into Eddie’s neck just to hear him laugh again. He really, really likes the sound of Eddie’s laugh. Sometimes, if he tried hard enough, he could make him snort, which was the cutest sound in the world. 

–

Eddie wakes up early enough to sneak out before his mom wakes. For some reason they never graduated from sneaking into each other’s room at ridiculously late hours of the night, like the allure of it was too much to give up, and so Richie’s parents loved having Eddie over but he still rarely came through the front door. 

Richie watches him go, even though Eddie must think he is still asleep. He never is. Usually he wakes up before Eddie or to his fumbling around to leave. He’s been a light sleeper for years now, even though his mother swore he slept like a baby when he was, well, a baby. 

He laughs when Eddie slips on the branch and falls out of the tree outside his window, at the gentle thud of his tiny body and probably the pouty face he makes when he hits the ground. Richie earns himself the bird. He can only really see the tip of his finger. And then Eddie is gone and Richie falls easily back to sleep. 

He meets the rest of the gang later that day, back at the barrens with a backpack slung over his shoulder and only one shoe because his right flip flop broke on the way over, tossed into his backpack to tape up later. Eddie would probably go with him to buy new ones though. He would call them a safety hazard. 

“I brought the goods,” he announces, flicks his other shoe off, and flops his backpack down. He unzips it, pulling out a half bottle of gin, a pack of gummy bears, two glass bottles of his mother’s home-made lemonade, and a towel. 

“I think I’m hungover,” Ben says to Richie, taking the lemonade from Richie to distribute into six small dixie cups. He spills a little bit over the sides and licks his fingers. 

“You can’t be hungover from smoking,” Richie says cheerfully. And then watches Eddie take the bottle of gin from his other hand, uncap it, and drink a large swig, without even saying hello. 

“Christ, Eddie,” Stan says, and snatches the bottle away from Eddie. “Take it easy.” 

Eddie wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. The gesture is so unlike him, kind of sloppy in a weirdly distracting way, that Richie’s brain does not quite compute it. Bill nudges him in the ribs, asks for the candy, and Richie nods for him to go right ahead. 

“Are you okay, Eddie?” Ben asks. Angel Benedict, Bernard, Benicio, always saying what someone else should have said first. Richie could kiss him. If he didn’t already want to kiss Eddie. 

“I’m fine,” Eddie says. “Let’s go swimming.” 

“I bought a towel,” Richie says dumbly. 

Eddie ignores him and promptly takes off his shirt. Richie gawks for a second before following. And the others follow suit. They leave their stuff piled by a tree and then walk the short distance to the edge of the cliff, bare skin warmed in the summer sun, bare feet toeing at the dirt and the bits of browning grass beneath them. 

Before they jump, Eddie looks at Richie, reaches a hand up to his face. For a second Richie thinks he’s about to caress him like a lover might in one of his sister’s romance novels, which Richie absolutely did not read at late hours of the night, shoved between his headboard and the wall. But then Eddie takes off his glasses, fingers pinched at the perpetually taped bridge, and sets them on a nearby rock. 

“You always lose them in the water,” he says. Richie quite feels like he’s already jumped off, the way his stomach flutters. Eddie smiles. And then they all link hands and step off the cliff and into the water. 

No matter how many times he jumps, and at this point it has to be in the hundreds, Richie is always terrified on the way down, but in the most exhilarating way. He fely suspended, like time paused and the earth was pushing up at him, refusing to allow him the surface, the relief, his body buoyed in water instead of in air. Somewhere in between jumping the cliff and hitting the water he has let go of Eddie’s hand.

He is the first to surface. He watches as five other heads pop up around him one by one, laughing, spitting water out from their mouths because they were too busy screaming to not swallow water. Eddie floats onto his back. Richie swims to him, pushes him under, laughs when he comes up spluttering and cursing. 

“You could have drowned me,” he says, and then makes a show of it. Richie catches his head when he attempts to collapse onto him, pulls him up by the armpits so he’s slouched against Richie. The air is warm but the water is still cold, and he can feel the goosebumps on Eddie’s skin, where his arms wrap around his waist, his ankles hook around his knees. 

“You’re such a drama queen,” Richie says. 

Eddie laughs and pulls back, but he doesn’t put much space between them and then he lifts one arm out of the water and runs a hand through Richie’s hair so all the huge, shining glory of his forehead is exposed to the world. And then he lets it go, and it flops wet and sad back onto his forehead. 

“Your hair is getting so long,” he says. “Does it bother you?” 

“I can cut it for you,” Stan says from a few feet away, bobbing up and down in the water and watching them. “If you want. I’ve been learning how to.” 

Richie pinches Eddie’s cheek and he smacks him away. 

“Muchas gracias, Stan. But I think Eddie likes it long.” 

“I really don’t,” Eddie says. “You look like a mop.” 

“Mops clean and you love cleaning.” 

“Oh my god,” Stan says, throws his hands up so a little water sprays into their faces, and swims away, joining Ben, Bill, and Mike in their quest for water turtles. They both watch him go, and Richie realizes then that his hands have somehow come to rest on Eddie’s hips and that he’s been sort of bobbing him up and down ridiculously. He lets go. Eddie sinks a little bit, grabs onto his shoulders. 

“I wouldn’t let you drown,” Richie says, which maybe aloud seemed non sequitur but which he felt needed saying anyhow. He knows he sounds a little too raw, and that it was risky, especially with how Eddie looks at him. 

“That’s uncharacteristically honest,” he says. 

“I can be honest.” 

“I know that,” Eddie says easily, and then he climbs onto Richie and uses his weight to pull him under. 

In the water, Richie opens his eyes. Even though Eddie always told him not to because his eyesight was terrible enough and who knew what sort of crazy eye-eating bacteria was in the quarry water that could infect him and make him go totally blind instead of just managably. 

He does it anyway. And he looks at Eddie, blurry like far things usually were to see, but he was close enough to touch. His hair billows around him. His cheeks are blown up. His eyes squeezed tightly shut. He reminds Richie of a puffer fish. Spiky and adorable. Poisonous. But tempting to touch. 

Sometimes thinking of Eddie made him sad and happy all at once. Because he still sometimes fumbled for his inhaler even now, and when he remembered his pocket was empty, he’d close his eyes for longer than a blink. Because he fussed over each of them when they were hurt or sick, kept his fanny handy even now, and covered up his worry with a foul mouth and seeming insults. Because his hair curled around his ears and he always clipped his nails short and his freckles stood out stark in the summer sun. 

And maybe Richie didn’t notice the minute little details of the rest. Maybe he wasn’t so hyper-fixated on them like he was with Eddie. He was once, wide-eyed in adoration for each of them, love in his heart too big for how small it felt in his aching body. 

He still loved them maybe a little too much, but it had been a long time since he’d idolized Bill, a long time since he’d committed Ben’s favorite movies to memory, a long time since he had started to look at Eddie like he is looking at him now. 

And maybe he knew that. But it was just because Eddie was so  _ loud.  _ He demanded to be looked at. And Richie was almost legally blind now, would need glasses until he was dead, and in the water he couldn’t see for shit, but he was looking. 

He was always looking. 

–

Richie takes his time in the shower. 

Mostly because when Eddie came out of it, sauntering in a pair of Richie’s sweatpants that he had to roll up because Richie still had a few inches on him, his cheeks ruddy pink, and he’d said something about how two-in-one shampoo conditioner was the bane of his existence and they absolutely had to go shopping for something better, Richie felt like he was going to combust. 

“What took you so long?” Eddie says once Richie emerges. 

He’s laying on his side of the bed, which bridges into Richie’s side more and more often nowadays, and he’s doing that stupid french girl pose, on the side, hand propping his chin up, with the hip. He’s stupid gorgeous. Richie cannot stand it. 

“I was rubbing one out to your mom.” 

Eddie makes a face. “Fuck off,” he says. “Don’t touch me no do not touch me with those disgusting hands fuck, Richie!” 

But it’s too late. Richie’s got one hand underneath the hem of his shirt and the other pinning him down by the shoulder. And Eddie tries to pry him off by the wrists but not very hard, giving up when Richie goes deadweight on top of him. 

“You’re the worst,” he says, his voice a little breathy from Richie’s weight on top of him. He doesn’t tell him to get off though. 

“I was only kidding,” Richie says. And he never really takes back a joke but this feels like an okay time to start.

Eddie relaxes underneath him, sticks his hands to the small of Richie’s back, underneath the fabric, and Richie kind of can’t breathe anymore even though he’s the one crushing Eddie, so he rolls off and Eddie’s hands slip out and rest instead on Richie’s chest. Which isn’t much better but at least he could functionally breathe again. 

“Your shirt is pilling,” Eddie says, picking off the little bits of fuzz with his fingertips. Richie lets him have his way. He always did. “You should probably toss it soon.” 

“No way, this is a forever shirt.” 

“It looks like a bowling alley carpet.” 

“That’s the look I’m trying to achieve. Besides, you like how I dress.” 

Eddie scoffs, keeps picking off the fuzz and depositing it into Richie’s hair. “I complimented that bomber jacket once. And then you wore it for two weeks straight without washing it– don’t think I didn’t notice. This shirt hurts my eyes.” 

“You hurt my feelings,” Richie whines, feigning offence but Eddie sees right through it. When he’s done with the pill he rolls away onto his back. Richie runs a hand through his hair to rid it of the fuzz, and it falls softly onto the bed like snow. Bowling alley colored snow. He inches towards Eddie. 

“Hey,” he says, a shot in the dark but he was a masochist anyhow, and maybe a little warm and fuzzy and willing to aim and miss terribly so long as it involved Eddie. “Wanna catch a movie tomorrow?” 

“Like with the others?” 

There’s something in his voice Richie doesn’t quite  _ get. _ And he prized himself on knowing Eddie’s every inflection so it irks him to feel unable to interpret this. 

“Yeah,” Richie says. “With the others, sure. But maybe not a horror flick. I hated that last one.”

“I thought you loved horror movies,” Eddie says. “But okay.” 

“Okay.” 

“Okay,” Eddie says again, and then laughs, flicks his gaze to Richie and then away. His cheeks are still pink from the shower and it is distracting. “I always forget how different you look without your glasses on. You have nice eyes, Rich.” 

“Oh,” Richie says, stunned. “Thanks.” 

“Don’t let it get to your head. It’s big enough already.” 

Richie laughs, throws his arms around Eddie, presses a kiss to the crown of his forehead. “Wouldn’t even dream of it.” 

–

It thunders the next afternoon, after Eddie has left, the great big summer sort of thunder. It shakes the windows, scares the dog, makes the air static, and Richie doesn’t believe in harbingers but maybe in retrospect he should. 

He’s supposed to meet the gang for a movie. But maybe his face just begs for it. Maybe because he’s been lucky since school let out and he’s overdue and god or jesus or some higher entity knew, and decided Richie best recieve a beating so the universe could once again be balanced. 

There’s an entire group of them, slouching with their hands in their pockets, looking stupid as hell the way kids like them always do, and they say something to him and he says something back. The usual exchange. Something about bumming a cigarette, premature death, you look like shit so maybe jack off more it makes it easier to quit. He doesn’t remember exactly and he won’t remember later either. 

The kid, whose name he forgets but whose face he knows from history class junior year, slams him in the face with his fist. Richie sees it coming but he’s out of practice so he fails to block it, and it gets him right on his fat, precious nose. 

“Ouch,” Richie says. “Fucking  _ ouch _ , dude. My nose is ugly enough already, you couldn’t have punched me in the stomach or something?” 

His eyes are a waterfall, which is the worst thing about getting punched in the nose. It made you cry whether you wanted to or not. He brings a hand up to his face and draws it away and there’s blood on it. The watery bright kind of blood when it’s fresh. He feels kind of faint. 

“Would you shut the fuck up?” The kid says, and hits him again, this time in the stomach just like he asked. He keels over, presses a hand to his gut, and then remembers there’s blood on it so he’s staining his nice, collared shirt. What was it again for blood stains? Cold water or warm. Peroxide, maybe. 

He doesn’t particularly enjoy the experience. But he just can’t help himself. Or so they say. And maybe, if he was being completely honest, he sometimes felt like he deserved it. Which was pretty fucking stupid. He hears Eddie say so, little angel on his shoulder, or maybe devil, whispering into his ear so aggressively there’s some spit involved, flapping his angel-devil wings frantically. 

He somehow manages to hit the kid back, which fucking hurts, but he still does it. And while he’s distracted by maybe probably breaking the knuckles in his right hand they shove him to the ground. He hits the floor with a groan, and they kick him a couple times, and when they’re done they leave. 

So he gets up and he ambles to the theater. Eddie is waiting outside, picturesque as ever, a little bit of hair stuck to his temples with sweat because even though there’s a storm it’s still hot out. He looks anxious, wringing his hands, running them through his hair so it sticks up. He spots Richie from a little bit away, starts talking before he’s close enough to realize. 

“You’re late! The others already went in but I w– what the fuck happened to your face?” 

“Um,” Richie starts. 

He means to say something clever, to ease the tension, maybe get rid of that look on Eddie’s face, but all he can come up with is, “fucking hurts, Eds.” Which is really pretty pathetic. Eddie also seems to think so, because he blubbers something incoherent and then pulls Richie into the theater, bypasses the ticket taker, and leads him into the bathroom, where he plops him down on a sink. 

“He could’ve broken your nose,” Eddie says, more to himself than to Richie, and begins a thorough assessment of Richie’s injuries. 

This sink is sure to collapse under Richie’s weight, but Eddie has one hand clutched in the fabric of his shirt and the other dabbing at his face. Not gently. But sort of gently. The sort of combination of gentle and ungentle that only Eddie achieved. And Richie is like play doh when Eddie touches him like that. So he doesn’t move. 

The fussiness isn’t unusual, but while Eddie patches him up Richie is reminded of the time Eddie crashed into the store Richie worked and got fired at last summer with a squirrel wrapped in his favorite sweater.  _ Someone hit it and just left it there on the street. Who the fuck does something like that, Richie?  _ Like Richie might have the answer. And Richie had closed shop and they argued about what to do until they realized there was nothing they could do at all. And the squirrel died an hour later. 

Eddie sounded then like he couldn’t believe it. Like he does now, fussing over Richie. Eddie knew cruelty, the obvious sort where kids punched smaller kids just because they could, and carved bloody letters into skin with sharp knives, where children died and people grieved, but looked away when they could help but chose not to. 

And he knew cruelty that didn’t look it, and for its disguise was worse. Kept from school for a sickness he didn’t have, pills forced down his throat, conditional love. He knew what it was like to be stripped of any notion of safety, of comfort. 

Eddie knew cruelty. Richie thought he knew it more than most in this town. More than Richie could ever know at least. But in moments like these it was like Eddie couldn’t bring himself to accept that cruelty existed. And that made Richie hurt like a motherfucker. Worse than the bruised ribs, the aching knuckles, the swollen face. 

“Nose isn’t my best feature,” Richie says with a shrug. “Besides, I like it when you take care of me like this.” 

“That’s the stupidest fucking thing you’ve ever said to me.” 

“But I like your pink band aids,” Richie says dumbly. 

“I’m serious, Richie. Do you have any idea what it’s like to stick bandaids on you and pretend it’s okay that someone did this to you?” 

What the hell was Richie supposed to say to that? He didn’t deserve Eddie, not how he took care of him, not how he worried for him, not least of which how he acted like Richie’s pain was worse than his own, when it couldn’t even compare. 

“Don’t worry so hard, Eds. It’s making you wrinkle.” 

“Shut up.” 

“Yeah, I take it back. You use your mom’s aging cream or something?” 

“Can you please take this seriously for once?” Eddie says. “I don’t even have enough bandaids.”

“I thought your fanny had an unlimited supply.” 

“I wish. I would only ever use it for you. Don’t distract me, Richie. Promise me you won’t pick a fight again and you won’t say anything stupid to anyone that would make them want to kill you. Not for the rest of summer. You have to promise.” 

“Okay,” Richie says easily, extending his pinkie for Eddie to wrap his own around. “I promise.” 

So they miss the movie. Richie doesn’t care that much. They walk to the nearest store because Eddie wants frozen peas for Richie’s knuckles, and they get one slushie for the two of them because they always did it that way. Richie figures the others will figure out eventually they won’t be joining them, and they could catch up later anyhow, as always. 

“Give me that,” Eddie says, taking the bag from Richie and removing two packages of frozen peas. He sits on the curbside, pats the spot beside him for Richie to sit, takes his bad hand and places the peas on it, and then wraps it around with scotch tape. Richie doesn’t ask where he got the tape from. Maybe his unlimitedly supplied fanny pack. 

“Thanks,” he says, and he means it. Eddie hums in response, passes him the slushie. They share a straw. Eddie never did that until the start of this summer. He always said the mouth had more than something bajillion germs and sharing drinks was just begging for an orally transmitted disease. But– 

Richie could kiss him, the both of them a little sweaty, his face hurting. He could put the drink down and probably knock it over bringing his hands to Eddie’s face. Eddie would probably taste like coca cola slushie and his lips would be cold. He could, and in this hypothetical scenario Eddie would kiss him back, and it would feel like a long time coming, a sloppy but inevitable collision. 

He could. But he doesn’t. 

“Can I stay at your place tonight?” Eddie says. 

“Sure,” Richie says. “I’ll leave the window unlocked.” Even though he always does and Eddie knows that. 

So he leaves the window unlocked. And after Eddie’s mom has fallen asleep he climbs up the tree and into the window but Richie has to help him in. They collapse into a messy pile of limbs. Eddie swats gently at his helping hand. 

“Have you been icing your hand?” He says, getting up on his own. 

“Of course. Doctor’s orders.” 

“Oh, you’re lying. Go get ice.” 

Richie goes downstairs to get ice, brings back up a glass of water for Eddie, and when he steps through the door Eddie is already in bed even though it’s barely nine o’ clock. He passes Eddie the glass, and he chugs it in record time, and when Richie settles onto his side Eddie rearranges the ice on his hand before settling back down again. 

“Hey,” Richie says. “So I’m not complaining or anything, but is there a reason you’ve slept over three nights in a row?” 

Eddie usually never slept over more than twice in a row. His mom couldn’t stand it and he couldn’t stand to argue. So the streak is unusual. Hasn’t happened since freshman year of high school when Richie’s grandmother died and Eddie told his mother he would never speak to her again if she didn’t let him see Richie. And then he had just stayed. 

“No,” Eddie says, but Richie reads him easily. 

“Is your mom okay?” 

“You hate my mom,” Eddie says in lieu of a real answer. 

“I don’t hate your mom. If I hated her why would I be fu–” 

“Do not finish that sentence.” 

Richie blubbers out the last word. And then laughs to ease the knot in his throat. “Okay, yeah. She’s not my favorite in the world. She treats you like shit.” 

“It’s not her fault.” 

“Uh, I respectfully disagree.” 

“It’s complicated. She’s sick. She can’t help it.” 

“Okay,” Richie says, sitting up. “Listen, Eddie. And don’t punch me in the face for this because my nose can’t take any more fuckery. But you need to stop making excuses for her. She’s a grown woman, and she hurts you and then gets away with it because no one in this fucking town is smart enough to see it, and because you love her too much to stop her. Remember that time she threatened to break your fucking legs when you told her you were going to run track? Like that made  _ any _ rational sense. It’s not okay. You gotta stop pretending it is.” 

“What the hell, Richie?” Eddie says, his face splotchy red like it gets when he’s either angry or about to cry. “You have no fucking right.” 

“I don’t give a shit. She’s a prick and you deserve better.”

“You don’t get to say that. No one gets to say that. It’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair is how she treats you.”

Eddie sighs heavily, runs a hand through his hair so it sticks up, and his face is so red now it resembles a tomato. “Can we not talk about this right now?” 

He sounds a little desperate, upset in a way Richie hates to think is his fault, and that he hasn’t seen Eddie like in a long time. 

“When do we talk about then?” 

“When you haven’t just gotten the shit kicked out of you maybe.”

“Fine, but I won’t forget. You’re too good for her.” 

“Whatever, Richie.” 

“Yeah,” Richie says, rearranging the ice pack on his hand. “Not really whatever but okay.” 

Eddie sighs, takes the ice pack off Richie’s hand and places it on the bedside drawer. “That’s probably enough for today,” he says, and then he lays back down and stares at the ceiling, squirms around like a worm in a puddle after it’s rained, like he can’t get comfortable. 

“The fuck are you squirming so much for?” 

“My back hurts,” Eddie says. He probably doesn’t mean for it to come out like a whine. And suddenly, even after Richie’s outburst, Eddie’s subsequent but inevitable denial, everything is okay again. The contrast in mood is stark enough to give anyone else whiplash, but Richie settles into it easily, used to their wild oscillations. 

“You’re turning into an old man.” 

“No. I think I”m just stressed out.” 

“About your mom?” 

“I don’t know,” Eddie says. He still sounds distressed about it. Richie doesn’t push it past that, as much as he wants to. Eddie is still pink. Maybe he was angry or maybe he wanted to cry or maybe both. Richie puts a hand out. 

“Want me to crack it for you?” 

“You know how to do that?” 

“My dad is a doctor.” 

“Dentist,” Eddie corrects. “Not really the same thing. But fine.” 

So Eddie gets on his stomach and Richie very carefully maneuvers himself so he’s sitting on the small of his back, which reminds him of the previous night when Eddie put his hands to the same spot, a thought he shoves away as quick as it comes. He knows Eddie is far from delicate but he doesn’t put his full weight on him. He puts a finger to his spine, the little knob on the neck, travels down. 

“Are you  _ counting  _ them?” 

“Maybe,” Richie says. 

“Well, don’t do that. I’m not missing any.” 

“Have you lost weight?” He couldn’t really afford to. “You should come over for dinner more.” 

“Just do it, Richie.” 

“Okay, okay,” Richie says, and then he lines up his hands in a cup formation and pushes Eddie into the mattress at an angle that feels kinda sorta right. But maybe he has no idea what he’s doing. His dad was only a dentist after all. What was Eddie thinking letting him crack his back? 

“Ow, Jesus. Richie.” 

“Did it work?”

“I don’t think so.” 

Richie removes himself, plops down beside him and watches Eddie grumble into the pillow before turning to look at Richie. 

“Whoopsy,” Richie says, with an inflection at the end that makes it sound more like a question. “Want me to try again?” 

“Absolutely not.” 

Richie shrugs, sticks his hands underneath Eddie’s armpits just to make him squirm. 

“That tickles.” 

“But my hands are cold.” 

“Your hands are never cold,” Eddie says, huffs and squeezes his armpits to his sides so as to crush Richie’s hands. 

“No,” Richie agrees. Which means they were both acknowledging that Richie just wanted his hands on him, and Eddie wasn’t stopping it. Eddie closes his eyes. 

–

“Hey,” Richie says when she picks up after the fourth ring. He has his finger curled around the cable. 

_ “Hello? Who is this?” _

“You mean you don’t recognize my voice?” 

_ “Who is this?” _ She says again. 

“It’s Richie,” Richie says, giving up on the gag quickly. 

_ “Richie,” _ she says, repeating it like she’s fishing for recognition. 

“Yeah. You alright, Bev? You sound kind of weird.”

_ “Hi, oh my god, Richie! I missed you.”  _

“Missed you too, Bevvie.” 

_ “Why are you calling so early? Are you okay?  _

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Richie says. “Well. Actually, Eddie is upstairs sleeping. I uh, think I need help. And since you aren’t here to physically hang it over my head I figured I’d call you. That sounds awful actually I don’t wanna  _ use  _ you for advice but I mean– I also really missed your voice.” 

_ “It’s okay, Rich. I don’t think that. I missed yours too,”  _ Beverly says. _ “Even the bad ones. Are you still practicing?”  _

“Not really,” Richie admits. 

_ “That’s too bad,”  _ Bev says sincerely.  _ “What’s this about Eddie?”  _

“He’s in my room.” 

_ “In your room.”  _

“He slept over. And he’s been acting weird lately. I think something is up with his mom.”

_ “Isn’t there always something up with his mom?  _

“Yeah. But this seems worse than usual.” 

_ “Well, maybe he’s just not ready to tell you.”  _

“But I think I could help him.” 

_ “You don’t let him help you.”  _

“Sure I do. He kisses all my booboos better.” 

_ “Not like that, Richie. He probably just wants to know what’s going on in that big messy brain of yours. You never take yourself seriously and don’t try and joke your way out of this because you know it’s true. Maybe if you open up a little bit he’ll reciprocate.”  _

“But I don’t want to.” 

_ “Because it’s scary,” _ Beverly says pointedly.  _ “But it doesn’t matter what you say. He’ll still love you.”  _

“I think I need to go back to sleep,” Richie says. His eyes sort of burn. 

_ “With Eddie.” _

“Yeah,” Richie says absently. “Wait, no.” 

Beverly laughs, a sound like bells. And then they talk about her life with her aunt, and all her grand plans for college, which sound lovely and Richie aches in the chest listening to her talk about it. He misses her like a limb. And she laughs at his dumb jokes and then tells him to go back to sleep.

When he slips back into bed, Eddie mumbles something he doesn’t make out, shifts and throws an arm around Richie’s chest, his hair tickling the skin on his arm. Richie closes his eyes and tries, but he can’t fall back asleep. 

–

They are sitting in the clubhouse. Richie may or may not be high. It gives him that faint burning feeling in his sore muscles, where they kicked him in the ribs and stomach, the same kind of burn when he stuck his fingers under hot water after playing in the snow. 

He’s in the hammock, distracted by Eddie’s calves by his hips, by the tiniest bit of sweat on his upper lip, by the lazy way his eyes keep fluttering open and shut, like he wants to take a nap but won’t let himself. 

“Says here a woodpecker's tongue wraps around its entire brain,” Stan is saying. Richie pictures it, a terrible image when high, and blinks. 

“Fuck are you reading?” 

“A book,” Stan says, the smartass. Stan resumes reading. He does that thing Richie’s dad does, lick of the fingers, careful turning of the page, intent focus. It’s cute when Stan does it. 

“Gosh,” Richie says, struck by something in a more articulate way than ever before. “Stan, I’m really gonna miss you,” he says honestly. Maybe too honestly. Because Stan puts the book down and looks at him, serious in that way he does that sometimes makes Richie want to sit up straight. 

“Don’t talk like that,” Stan says. 

“But it’s true, isn’t it?” Richie says. “Bev is gone. You’re all fucking off to fancy colleges pretty soon. Except for Mikey. Who knows when we’ll be together like this again?” 

“It’s not the end, though,” Ben says. He places his comic book on the floor, looks at Richie with those sweet eyes of his, consoling him because maybe he recognizes the growing panic. 

“Y-yeah, Rich,” Bill says. “We’re n-not d-dying or anything.” 

“I know that,” Richie says. 

“Then don’t stress about it,” Stan says. “We’ll make it work.” 

“You okay, Richie?” Mike says. “You look kind of pale.” 

“Think maybe I smoked too much weed.” 

“Want some water?” 

“Yeah, thanks Mike.” 

And while Mike gets that, while he hands it to Richie, while he drinks it and watches Mike poke at Eddie, who really does look like he’s sleeping now, he realizes that Eddie hasn’t said a single thing. Maybe he really has fallen asleep. It would be the only logical explanation for his silence. Richie swings the hammock, pokes at Eddie’s chest with his toe. 

“You asleep?” 

“No,” Eddie says, and his brows scrunch up and he opens his eyes. 

“Cool,” Richie says. Bill goes back to his tinkering, Stan to his book, Ben to his comic, Mike to his little jars of insects, a community of sorts he had been growing for several years now. And Richie swings the hammock and watches Eddie lean back, his Adam's apple when he swallows, and does not say any more. 

When they leave to go home it is dark out. He parts ways with the rest early, giving Eddie a kiss on the forehead he smacks him for. He makes his way to the drugstore to see if he can sneak a beer into the front of his shorts without Mr. Keene catching him. Because he has no moral compass. And also Mr. Keene was an asshole. 

And he is walking home, still a little high, and the sky is fading blue after sunset, the air sticky humid. He rounds the block by the drugstore, pulls out the can, pops it open and takes a sip. He still doesn’t like the taste. Bill told him once it was an acquired taste, like black coffee or something. But so far nothing. He mostly drank it for the buzz. 

And then someone knocks the can out of his hand. It spills on his shirt. He moves to wipe it off but someone grabs him by the shoulder and shoves him back into the wall behind him, and he hits it with a small thud and a groan. 

Christ. He’s too old to get beat like a scawny kid on the school playground. And he made a promise to Eddie he wouldn’t let it happen again. He didn’t even get the chance to say anything. 

“What the fuck, man?” Richie says, fixing the skew of his glasses. It’s that kid from earlier, the one who smashed his nose and kicked him when he was down. “I was enjoying that.” 

“Heard you’re a cocksucker. That true?” 

“Sure, I’ll suck yours,” Richie says. “Want me to hold your hand while I do it?.” 

“Stop talking, trashmouth.” 

The name, having been decommissioned for a while, catches him by surprise. A little snag in his mouth, hooked like a fish. 

Usually he could rile anyone. But right now he’s still high, off one thing or another, and he just wants to fucking go home, so he shoves the kid off, realizes there’s two more of them, moves to shove past them, too. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” His voice is too low. He’s trying too hard. 

And then the first kid punches him, and he hits his head on the concrete pavement because he can’t even manage to break his fall. He tries to defend himself but he only manages two forearms up in front of his face, and he curls like a rollie pollie when they start kicking him again. He wants to ask them to take their shoes off. 

He thinks he is trying to say something. They don’t really listen. There’s a bit of shuffling, a bit of yelling, a bit of laughing. He senses there might be some new arrival, another guy to join in on the beating, and he squeezes his body more tightly in on itself. 

“Stop,” someone says. It sounds a little like Eddie. Or he thinks it does but what the hell would he be doing here. He can’t hear or think very well over the rush in his forehead. “Fucking stop it!” 

He really hopes they don’t touch this person who sounded a lot like Eddie. They could have their fancy way with him, beat the crap out of him, take all his things, but if they touched Eddie then Richie might not get up once they’re done with him. Or maybe he would just so he could kill them for it. And then he would lay back down and not get up for the rest of his life. 

He hears some kind of scuffling, a voice gravely like an old man, and then the rough scattering of feet. Maybe something about the police. Or a lawsuit. Anyway, they leave, and his once curled body uncurls onto the pavement, all his limbs flayed, like Jesus. Except the real Jesus definitely hated Richie, for many reasons but prime of which he could not say out loud but which at this point was irrevocably true. Or maybe Jesus didn’t give a shit. Who could really know for sure. 

“Richie,” Eddie says. It  _ is  _ Eddie. Richie’s head feels like a cotton ball. He thinks maybe Eddie is holding him up. His hands are cupping his cheeks, his face close enough Richie can make out the red in his cheeks, the crease in between his brows, pink mouth and chapped lips. You should drink some water, he thinks to say. Eat some fruit. You’re so freaking skinny. And dehydrated. And a fussy little hypocrite. 

“Richie, c’mon,” Eddie says. “Look at me.” 

“I think I’m concussed,” he says, and his mouth feels kind of tight like when he is about to cry, lump in his throat, but doesn’t want to sound like it. 

“Oh my god,” Eddie says, to him or to himself he doesn’t know. “Hey, don’t close your eyes. Your brain could hemmorage.” 

That seemed implausible but Richie tries to keep his eyes open. “Can’t see shit. Need my glasses.” 

“I have them.” 

“Oh, cool. Neat. Ever tell you I love your voice?” Richie says. His head really hurts. 

“Shut up,” Eddie says, but he sounds choked off like he’s also trying not to cry. 

“Well, he’s talking ain’t he?” Someone says, and Richie manages to look up. There’s Mr. Keene of the pharmacy there, watching over them like a hawk would his prey, and Eddie doesn’t turn to him but Richie tries to smile in some kind of thanks. Mr. Keene does not look impressed. He was such an asshole. 

“You should take him home,” he says, bored. “Get him to bed.” 

“Yeah, thanks,” Eddie says absently, his hand on Richie’s forehead, fingers tracing his chest, arms, face, looking for something to fuss over. Maybe there’s too much to choose from, because Eddie looks angry and sad and like he wants to wring someone’s neck, and for the first time in a while not Richie’s. 

“And you should watch your mouth,” Mr. Keene says. Presumably to Richie. But all he can do in response is nod his head, which Eddie makes a little distressed noise at when it sort of falls forward and stays there until he lifts it back up. And then Mr. Keene leaves. And Eddie helps him stand and they make their way out onto the street. 

He knows Eddie can take the weight but he feels bad anyway. Eddie says nothing for too long. 

“Um,” Richie starts.

“Don’t talk right now.” 

“M’kay,” Richie agrees. It did hurt to talk. 

And they make their way home and into the front door of Richie’s house. Richie announces their entrance to his family. His mother is in the kitchen. His father in the living room, feet on the coffee table, remote in hand. 

“You okay, kid?” His dad says when he sees his state. 

“Got into a fight,” Richie says easily. 

“You ought to let me teach you how to throw a punch.” 

“Are you hurt, Richard?” His mom says, arriving from the kitchen, pointing at him with a spatula that drips something onto the floor. “Oh baby, there’s blood all on your shirt. You need some ice for your face. Did you pick a fight again?” 

His mother uses her apron to wipe at his face. Richie takes her wrist gently and lowers her hand, and she looks at him with equal parts love and frustration. Richie loved her enough it hurt, but he figured out a long time ago she didn’t really understand him like she wanted to. She worried for him, and hated the kids that left him bloody, but she could never not make it his fault too. He smiles and hopes there isn’t blood on his teeth. 

“I’m okay, mom.” 

“Clearly you aren’t,” his mother says, and looks at Eddie beside him. “Hello, Eddie darling.” 

“Hi, Maggie.” 

“Would you like something to drink?” 

“That’s fine. Thanks, though. We’re gonna head upstairs.” 

“Okay,” she says, soft and sad with a nod of her head. “Fix him up for me won’t you, Eddie? I’ll leave you some leftovers. Don’t forget the ice. Here, I’ll get it for you.” 

And so they go upstairs, with ice and two dishrags that his mother hands for Eddie to hold. The door of his bedroom closes behind them, Eddie sits him down on the bed, and then looks down at him with his arms crossed, a mean expression on his face. 

Eddie mumbles the whole time. Mostly to himself, although sometimes he asks Richie if that hurts, what color bandaid he wanted, if he has neosporin because his own supply was running low. It’s mostly his head that is hurting him, which Eddie can’t do anything about really, as much as he wanted to. He disinfects the scrape on his forehead, sticks a bandaid to that. The ones on his knees, bandaids to that. Hands him four ibuprofen and a glass of water from the bathroom sink, and watches him swallow that. 

“We should go see someone about your head,” he says when he’s done, watching Richie with those wide bushbaby eyes. His face is so worried. His head on the pillow, hand cushioning, closer than ever. Their chests, if they inhaled real heavy, would touch. 

“I don’t wanna. I wanna sleep.” 

“Fine,” Eddie says. “But only because you’re coherant, otherwise I’d make you stay up. And I’m taking you to see the doctor tomorrow.” 

“Okay,” Richie agrees. And he feels a little pang in his chest for being taken care of so well. The complicated mixture of guilt and warmth that always paired with Eddie’s fuss. His head buzzes. He closes his eyes. Eddie hadn’t even bothered to brush his teeth before laying down. That’s his last thought before he slips into sleep. 

–

“Holy shit, that’s bright,” Richie says, blinking at the harsh light shining into his face and twisting his head to avoid it. “Please, doc, I’m already blind.” 

“Sensitivity to light is a symptom of head injury,” the doctor says. “That paired with your headache makes me believe you have suffered from a concussion, just as your friend suspected.” 

“What should we do?” Eddie says. His arms are crossed over his chest. He’s been biting his lip. Richie almost reaches out to stop him but thinks better of it. The gesture would probably seem a little too tender for witness. 

“It’s a mild injury. Painkillers and rest should do.” 

“That’s it?” 

“That’s it.” 

Eddie looks displeased. Richie pinches his cheek but he smacks it away, takes the paper clipboard from the doctor, leads the way out the door. Richie thanks the doctor, sincere, and follows Eddie out. 

“Hey,” he says, catching up with him with a hand at his wrist to slow him down. “He said it was fine.” 

“He didn’t say that.” 

“Yeah, but it was implied,” Richie says. “You’re okay, right?”

“What?” Eddie says, turning to look at Richie. “Why are you asking me that?” 

“I don’t know. You’ve got that look on your face. You just seem upset. I promise I was taking it seriously.” 

“I’m not upset,” Eddie says. 

“Okay sure,” Richie says. But maybe Eddie hears his disbelief, because he looks some combination of exacerbated and defensive. He tugs out of Richie’s grip, flexes his fingers like they bother him, bites his lip again. 

“Let’s just go,” Eddie says. “I’ll walk you home.” 

–

“Richie,” his mother calls from downstairs. “Your friend is on the line for you.” 

“Coming,” Richie calls, and sprints down the stairs as fast as he dares in his current physical state, takes the phone from her hand, and says in his best customer service voice, “hello, Richie Tozier speaking, how may I help you?” 

_ “Eddie says you almost died,” _ Stan says. 

“He exaggerated. I have a concussion.”

_ “Hu,”  _ Stan says curiously.  _ “Are you okay?”  _

“Yeah, just a headache.” 

_ “He made it seem like he had to glue your brain back together. I was worried.”  _

“That’s so sweet,” Richie says in a lovelorn voice he reserved for the most honest sentiment. 

_ “Fuck off,”  _ Stanley says, but it sounds more like  _ I love you.  _

“Love you, Stan,” Richie says. “I’m not kidding. I really do.” 

Stan doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Richie hears him inhale.  _ “I love you, too. You’ll remember that, right?”  _

“How could I ever forget?” 

_ “Just in case. Anyway, I appreciate it but I think I’m the wrong person to be confessing to.”  _

“But I’ve been head over heels in love with you for years.”

_ “I’m going to hang up now.”  _

“Sure, okay,” Richie says. “Love you. Again.” 

_ “Yeah, Richie. Love you, too.”  _

–

Eddie brings an entire duffel like he plans to stay for a while, and he promptly removes a bottle of tylenol, a tupperware of chocolate chip cookies, and a can of tomato juice. Disgusting. Richie had already eaten three cookies and opened the can for Eddie, though he was too distracted to drink it. 

He’s pacing the room, fidgeting with the trinkets on his drawer, throwing the scattered trash wrappers into their rightful home and then scolding Richie on his inability to keep anything clean. 

“What’s this?” He says, kicking at a jabba-the-hut-shaped pile of laundry by the closet. It slumps sadly to its side. 

“They’re clean,” Richie says. “Can you chill a bit? Come sit down.” Richie pats the space next to him on the bed. Eddie ignores him. He picks up a hoodie, sticks it to his face, looks a little disappointed that Richie was telling the truth. 

“Don’t wanna,” Eddie says, tossing the sweater back onto the pile. 

“Eddie, please. Pretty please with sugar on top. Or sprinkles. Marshmallows? Whatever you like. All you’re pacing is giving me a headache. Please come and lay down.” 

“Your head is hurting?” Eddie says, and of course that’s what makes him finally relent, but only so he can check Richie’s head. He puts two hands to the side of his face, looking intently into his eyes. Richie removes his hand from his face so he can focus on something other than the warmth of his fingertips. 

Something must be done. And soon. Or his head might actually explode. And he’s pretty sure Eddie would not be happy about glueing all the bits back together. Though he would probably still do it. 

“It’s fine,” Richie says with reassurance. “You took care of it, remember?” 

“You should lay down,” Eddie says anyway. 

“Fine,” Richie says, lays down in the hopes that might make Eddie happy enough to follow suit. “Now can you please tell me what the hell is wrong so I can help and we can take a nap or something?” 

“If anyone should be asking what’s wrong it should be me,” Eddie says. 

“What?” 

“You know what.” 

“Okay. Tell me anyway?” 

“Seriously?” Eddie says. He moves, sticks a pillow in his lap. Richie stares up at him. He can’t lift his head, like suddenly he’s lost all control over himself, so he just lays there with Eddie hovering over him, waiting for him to speak in the silence. 

“Your ribs are purple,” Eddie says. “Your lip is split. You need new glasses. And you have a fucking concussion. And I know people do this to people like us. I  _ know _ that. And I know it’s not your fault. But it hasn’t happened this bad since Bowers. And you’ve just been so weird lately, like you’re trying to hide something.” 

“I don’t mean to be weird.” 

“Okay, but I don’t think that’s true. I think you’re avoiding something. Or you think you deserve it, which is bullshit and you know that because I’ve said it a million times. Or you’re scared because it's our last summer together. Whatever it is you have to tell me.” 

“Don’t psychoanalyze me, Eds. I hate it when you do that.” 

“And I hate it when you call me Eds. So I guess we’re even.” 

“Jesus, you’re so–” Richie says, tugs at his hair. “You drive me crazy.” 

“I drive  _ you  _ crazy?” Eddie laughs. It sounds sort of maniacal. It makes the tightness in Richie’s chest lessen. The knot in his throat untangles itself. This is just how it goes. They fight and argue and hate each other but not really and it never lasts long at all. Richie sits up. 

_ “Yes,  _ you do,” Richie says. “Listen, okay– maybe you’re right. Maybe I am scared. I mean, Bill and Stan already started packing. We don’t talk about it ever because of course no one wants to think about it. And of course that freaks me out. And you won’t tell me what the fuck is going on with your mom. Even though it’s clearly bothering you. Which frankly, that’s a huge part of it.” 

“So what’s the rest of it?” Eddie says. Pleads it really. His eyes are so huge. He knows there’s something else. He must know. Subtlety was never Richie's strong suit. But fuck. He’s so afraid to say it. 

“If I tell you I don’t think you’ll ever forgive me.” 

“Richie,” Eddie says. “You’re my person, alright? I don’t care what you say so long as you say it. When are you gonna get that through your thick skull?” 

“It’s concussed,” Richie says absently. “And what does that even mean, your person?” 

“It means I don’t get tired of you! And when I’m bored or sad or whatever you’re the first person I want to be with. I would literally do anything for you, Richie. And yeah that scares the shit out of me but I don't care because I know it’s the same for you. So don’t try and kid your way out of this. I  _ know  _ you.”

“Wow,” Richie says, his chest tight. 

“Say something please.” 

“Uh.” 

“Oh my god,” Eddie says, with that little edge of hysteria in his voice that always reminded Richie of Eddie age 13, who had trouble carrying all the anxious panic in his body so let it seep out in other ways. Richie wishes he could take that feeling away, bottle it up, toss it into the ocean. But they didn’t live near the sea. 

“You’re my person, too,” Richie says. “Of course you are.” 

“Then why do you look so scared about it?” 

He thinks, watching Eddie watching him, that he always felt like he said too much. Even when he said nothing at all. Every time he opened his mouth to speak something honest he felt instead like he’d basically ripped his heart out of his chest and offered it bloody and beating with a smile that probably looked more like a dying grimace. 

But that with Eddie it was different. It always was. Maybe from sheer exposure. Like chernobyl. Except everyone died didn’t they. Shit. Figures he would equate emotional vulnerability to nuclear disaster. But– he could say anything to Eddie. He could spill his guts out and Eddie would gather them all up, stick them back into his body, sew him up with a needle and thread. And then he would stick a bandaid on it. 

“Richie,” Eddie says. “Tell me what’s going on.” 

“Okay,” Richie says. 

And maybe because Eddie is so close to him, and his bottom lashes are just as long as his top, which Richie’s sister once pointed out in envy and which Richie couldn’t stop thinking about for weeks afterwards. And maybe because he wants to be close enough that when Eddie blinks they brush his cheek. Maybe that’s why. 

He kisses him. Not on the mouth but the cheekbone, just a light press of lips. And he pulls away and watches Eddie watch him. And when Eddie doesn’t say anything, Richie kisses him lower, on the cheek. He pulls away and it blushes a color like rose. And Eddie still doesn’t say anything so Richie kisses him on the jaw. 

And where his fingers are, delicate at the middle of Eddie’s back, he feels Eddie shudder. And he feels him clutch at the fabric by Richie’s hips, pull him closer and then push him away. Like he can’t decide which he wants. His breath warm on Richie’s mouth. His lashes flutter open and shut like when he is trying not to fall asleep. 

“What are you doing?” 

His voice cracks a little bit. Richie might kiss him underneath his chin next, after he asks, if he says yes. 

“Is it okay?” 

“Yeah,” Eddie says. Richie hears him swallow. “Yes, it’s okay.” 

“Okay,” Richie says, and he kisses him just there, lower, once, twice, feels Eddie shudder again, shifting so his belly is pressed to Richie’s, shirts ridden up. And then Eddie moves his hands and cups Richie’s face, a little bit gentle and a little bit not, and he pulls Richie up just those few inches and he kisses him on the mouth. 

And then Eddie is half on top of him, and his hair has gotten a little longer since he cut it a few months ago, so it falls around his face, and they’re looking at each other. Eddie’s eyes are absurd, Richie thinks. And also his chest might not contain his heart much longer, and he might warn Eddie of the mess it will make, but Eddie leans down, kisses him again, and the words are lost on him. 

Richie makes some kind of sound he doesn’t mean to and Eddie hums against him. Richie’s hands are on the small of his back, underneath the fabric, fingers to skin, and Eddie tastes like the lip balm he uses, the one Richie stole and melted in the dryer once, and his lips are soft, and his tongue is warm and Richie–

“Eddie,” he says. He doesn’t know what he means. You have to get off. I might stop breathing. I didn’t think you would– but Eddie’s hands are in his hair and Richie’s heart is in his throat and he’s kissing him. So Richie kisses him back and forgets what he wants to say. 

Eddie breaks away but doesn’t go too far, rests his forehead on Richie’s and breathes his air. 

“What’s happening here?” Richie says after a moment of silence between them. 

“We’re just– messing around, right?” Eddie says. “Because that’s okay. I want to.” 

If anyone could miscommunicate the sentiment behind this it was Richie. And if anyone could misinterpret the message it was Eddie. Richie looks at Eddie, turning it over in his head, again and again. 

Bev told him to tell the truth and he’d tried to do it but in his own fucked up way. And now Eddie thought that this was just a thing Richie did, kissed his best friend like it meant nothing more, and he wanted to kiss him back.

It would be so easy. And Eddie wouldn’t be scared off by the truth, which was that Richie was in love with him. He would stay. It would be okay. So maybe he could kiss him and stop loving him like he did, in that too big for his body, apocalyptic way. And he wouldn’t have to risk losing him for good. 

“Whatever you want, Eddie,” Richie says, smiles when he smiles. His cheeks feel hot. Eddie tilts his head, curious, kisses the thought away and rolls over, his arms around Richie to pull him with and on top. 

“C’mon,” Eddie says, squirming a little under Richie’s weight. 

“Needy,” Richie says, leaning close but not quite touching. He means to pull away when Eddie goes to close the gap, but just ends up closing it himself. Eddie pulls him closer. 

–

“Shit,” Eddie says later, one of Richie’s legs sandwiched between both of his own, lips swollen, hands tracing a pattern on Richie’s arm. “You let me kiss you with a concussion.” 

Richie kisses him once more but misses and gets the corner of his mouth. 

“Good thing it was worth it.” 

“You’re really the worst.” 

“And yet you kissed me back.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees, and doesn’t look the least bit upset about it. His cheeks are pink still. His hair mussed up. He’s gorgeous, but Richie just has to ruin the moment. 

“So now that that’s figured out,” Richie says. “Wanna tell me what’s going on with your mom?” 

Eddie groans and sticks his face into Richie’s armpit. “I was hoping you would forget about that.” 

“Not a chance.” 

“Fine,” Eddie says. “I guess it’s only fair.” 

If Eddie was referring to honesty in exchange for honesty… Richie feels like a liar and an asshole but he can’t bring himself to stop Eddie speaking. Eddie shifts, lays on his side, waits for Richie to mirror the position before he laces their fingers together as though in comfort. Richie squeezes his hand. 

“I never would have found you after you got beat up if I weren’t at the drugstore already,” Eddie says. “I watched you stick a can of beer down your pants. Like you don’t have a dick complex already.” 

“Hey, my dick is–” 

“No thanks, Richie.

“Eh.” 

“Anyway,” Eddie says. “I was there for a prescription.” 

“You’re not sick, right?” Richie says, ebbing his growing panic. Ever since they’d found out Eddie had never actually been sick all those times his mother said he was, Richie irrationally couldn’t stand the idea of Eddie with a mild cold. 

“It wasn’t for me,” Edie says, reassuring. “It was for my mom. But I just can’t tell if it’s real. The timing is just so weird. Like, I’m finally leaving after she  _ finally _ agrees to let me. But when I think about it maybe it was way too easy. And now suddenly she’s sick, because it’s the only thing that’ll get me to stay.” 

“You can’t,” Richie says quickly. “There’s no way.” 

“Richie,” Eddie starts. 

“No, Eddie. You need to get out of here.” 

“Richie–” 

“Eddie,” Richie says. He brings their linked hands up to his mouth, presses his lips there. It’s too much and he knows it. But he can’t help it. Eddie watches him, eyes lidded, something like apprehension in his eyes. 

“Don’t hate me for this. But I would really honestly rather die than see you stuck in this shitty town. I know you feel like you have to take care of her. And I get it. But you can’t stay for her because you’ll never leave if you do. If she’s really sick she can take care of herself. And if she’s not then fuck that. You  _ have _ to leave, Eddie.” 

“I know that,” Eddie says. “Richie, I worked it all out already. I mean, I hate that it would be so messy, but I’m still leaving. I promise. I was actually going to ask about you.” 

Eddie has turned the conversation over so easily. Maybe on purpose or maybe not. He looks at him carefully. 

“What?” Richie says. 

“You. What about you?” 

“I’m going to school,” Richie says. “I’m… I’ll still be around.” 

“I know that. But California is far, Rich. Further than anyone else is going. What if we get busy? What if we forget what it was like?” 

“We won’t.” 

“But how do you  _ know?”  _

“I just do. Besides I could never forget a face like yours.” 

“You’re going to jinx it.” 

“I’m not.” 

“Hu,” Eddie says. And nothing else. And then he unlinks his hand from Richie and he puts it on his chest instead. And he leans over and squishes it between them with his body and kisses him. 

So maybe this thing they were doing was too tender for what they had said it would be. Maybe this wasn’t just two people leaving a hometown for seemingly greater things, familiar, messy and messing around for the memory of it. Maybe this was more than that. And maybe they both knew that.

“Eddie,” Richie says. He almost says it, the truth heavy in his mouth. 

“Don’t,” Eddie stops him, like he knows but couldn’t bear to hear it. “It’s okay.” 

So Richie doesn’t. And Eddie kisses him again, softer than before. Like he’s trying to say something the both of them are too afraid to say aloud. Richie puts his hands to his chest and feels how fast Eddie’s heart is beating underneath, and kisses him even softer


	2. ii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re my best friend,” Eddie says. “I just think I would also like you as my—” 
> 
> “Boyfriend?” Richie grins. 
> 
> Eddie scoffs at that word, but he smiles all the same and then leans in to kiss Richie on the space right beside his mouth, not quite his chin or his cheek but close, the skin there soft but scruffy. This gesture is so familiar Richie almost aches with remembering. 
> 
> “Partners?” Richie goes on, when Eddie kisses him on the cheekbone. “Lovers?” Eddie kisses him on the nose. 
> 
> “One of those should work, yeah,” Eddie says, and instead of teasing him a little while longer like he probably meant to, he kisses Richie on the mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have decided to finish this after all! the overall vibe might b different (this is a consequence of time jump and also i was in a weird place writing part 1). this was fun to work out,, but challenging oof 
> 
> thank u for reading! lots of love <3 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: richie sadness :'(, internalized homophobia (eddie), talk of divorce (myra uses eddie's sexuality in divorce proceedings; this is only vaguely mentioned but please proceed with caution), mentions of eddie's injury, clown trauma, & stan's suicide attempt, and also richie joking about cannibalism in his head 
> 
> if i missed anything or handled anything poorly or u have any q's pls let me know @petalloso.tumblr.com <3

When Richie first steps foot in the restaurant that fateful evening and lays eyes on Eddie standing there, he thinks immediately: _I fucking jinxed it._ After announcing himself the only way he knows how—dramatically and with a gong—he thinks also that he would very much like to plant his mouth on Eddie’s mouth, kiss him smack on that awkward, close-lipped smile, pulled forward by the collar of his cute little polo shirt. 

Eddie doesn’t make it any easier. Not with those puppy dog eyes, which he never actually grew into because they are just as absurd as ever on his now grownup face, and his thin-lipped scowl when Richie jokes about getting married, and _let’s take our shirts off and kiss._ It’s a joke, obviously, but the words send a jolt up his crooked spine anyway, his hand fit perfectly in Eddie’s and sweating. He plays along, feels vaguely led on, and is mostly at peace with that. 

Richie knows he still loves Eddie. Unlike the initial heart-attack shock of Mike’s voice over the phone before his godforsaken show, this knowledge is less a jarring revelation and more like greeting an old friend. He had _technically_ forgotten—though Richie reckoned there was some supernatural reason for that—but it had always been just there at his fingertips, that aching, inexhaustible love for him. Now it slipped easily back into his consciousness, familiar as his own reflection in the mirror. And it still hurt him, almost unbearably so. 

Richie knows he still loves him, because instead of sitting directly beside him, he leaves a seat empty between them at the table. Belatedly and ashamed, Richie realizes it was not to leave room for Stanley, because he only remembers he even exists when Ben asks the room if he is coming, and they all go quiet, and Eddie speaks his name softly aloud. 

Richie knows he still loves him because when those fortune cookies crack open, and eyeballs squirm towards him and bats flap in the air and his best friends in the world begin to scream in fear, he only thinks to call out for Eddie, who is backed into the corner, more afraid for him than he is for himself. 

Richie knows he still loves him because when they flood out of the restaurant to stand in the parking lot and the chill summer air, arguing with each other about what to do next, all Richie wants is to scoop him up and stick him in the passenger seat of his stupid rental car and drive away with him to anywhere else but this hell of a place. Even though Eddie would hate to be picked up like that, and would probably smack Richie upside the head for trying. Even though, most of the time when they were kids, it was Eddie hauling Richie away from the danger, and bandaging up his knees, wiping the blood from his face. 

Richie knows he still loves Eddie because he always did. 

He means to work up the nerve to say something, so the pressure on his chest might let up a little. So he stops feeling that lump in his throat like he hasn’t chewed his bread enough, so he can have his heart broken and then maybe move on with the rest of his sad, lonely life without his feelings for Eddie a shadow over everything, hollowing him out to make room for how huge and encompassing they were unexpressed. 

But then Stan shows up with bandaged forearms and circles beneath his eyes, and Richie almost kisses _him_ before he is slapped away. Stan calls Mike’s ritual bullshit, basically, which sort of hurts Mike’s feelings and also Bill’s, for some unknown reason. So they don’t do that and try something else instead, because of course the stupid clown wants to kill, maim, and eat them again. Eddie is shish-kabobed, and also figures out how to best the clown even as he bleeds out because he had always been a goddamn genius, and Richie never felt so maniacally good tearing off a limb like a chicken drumstick before. 

Then Eddie almost dies, and he spends a few weeks in the Bangor hospital while the rest of them stuff into a hotel closeby. They have just enough collective energy to huddle into one room even though they paid for two, wake each other up from nightmares, take shifts at the hospital, and force Richie to sleep, eat, and shower. 

So Richie never gets his chance. At least not before Eddie is discharged from the hospital, or before they spend another few nights at the hotel making arrangements and promises and dinner, before dispersing back to their lives as freshly scarred but freer people. 

But really, Richie was just a master at making excuses for himself. Because even after killing a murderous space clown with his bare hands and his trashy mouth, good for something other than bloody noses and bad jokes for a change, he still is not brave enough to say it. Or maybe he just can’t help but to feel that Eddie wouldn’t want to hear it either way, because he had tried once before and the words never got the chance to go through. 

So he says nothing, and Eddie heals enough to walk on his own. Eventually they all book their flights, go home, promise to keep in touch. He is afraid to forget but is almost grateful for the nightmares that keep him from it. And after a few weeks of waking sweaty and disoriented and afraid, Richie finally has his first dream in decades that is not a nightmare. 

–

 _“I can’t just yet,”_ Eddie says. From where he has his phone propped up on an emptied tomato paste can, Richie is contentedly watching him cut vegetables. He sort of wishes he were there to pick them off the cutting board and pop in his mouth, chew as loudly as he can just to annoy him, make him shove Richie away and call him a moron with the sort of inflection Richie imagined he would call him _sweetheart_ , or _honey_ , or something of that genre. 

“I could come to you,” Richie says, unthinkingly, watching the lines of Eddie’s forearm as he slices an onion. Frankly, he should not have forearms like that. 

_“You would do that?”_

“Sure,” Richie says, blinking to reset his wandering thoughts. “I mean I travel all the time, and you’re obviously in too perilous a state to leave right now.” 

_“That’s not why,”_ Eddie says, and before Richie can ask what he means, _“actually my injury is healing well.”_

“Oh?” 

_“Miraculously well—if you catch my drift.”_

“Hu?” He was not catching the drift. 

_“Supernaturally well?”_ Eddie tries again, then pauses to watch Richie make sense of that crypticism. Richie must take too long, because Eddie shifts off camera to toss his vegetables in a pot on the stove. 

Richie makes a little _aaah_ sound once he gets it, which Eddie imitates. They harmonize for a moment. Richie closes his mouth, opens it again. “That’s good, isn’t it?” 

Eddie picks his phone up and props it beside the stove now, so Richie can watch him stir a pot. The scene is riveting, all the more so because it involved Eddie. 

_“I skipped my last checkup,”_ Eddie says. _“Figured they might wanna lock me up to perform experiments on.”_

“You’d be the worst lab monkey.” 

_“I’d burn down the lab first day,”_ Eddie agrees. _“Anyway, how soon can you come?”_

“Eager, hu?” 

_“Obviously,”_ Eddie says, and Richie’s heart somersaults in his chest. _“I_ would _like to see you under more normal circumstances than the last.”_

“Fair enough,” Richie says. “I could be there Friday?” 

_“Uh, okay. Yeah, that works. I can call out.”_

“You’re working already?” 

_“Of course I’m working.”_

“Don’t you have sick leave or whatever?” 

_“I’m not sick.”_

“You almost died.” He _did_ die, for forty seconds or so. Richie only knew that by accident, and technically had to be sedated after overhearing it. 

_“But I didn’t,”_ Eddie says, like that was bullshit reassurance enough. He sticks a lid on his pot, then reaches over to pick up the phone. Richie wants to poke at this, feeling sort of masochistic and upset about it. But watching Eddie fumble around in his pantry, holding the phone so Richie has a good view of the underside of his chin, he chooses not to. 

“I think you just miss yelling at interns.” 

_“I’m not_ _an asshole to my interns, Rich,”_ Eddie says. _“That’s a myth. Besides they cry too easily to not feel guilty about it.”_

Eddie then attempts to open a wine bottle with one of the screw-on caps instead of the cork. He ends up dropping Richie face down onto the counter, then grunting a little bit before he picks him back up again. Richie tries not to laugh watching Eddie drink directly from the bottle and then wince at the taste. Heathen, though he would adamantly deny that accusation. 

_“But_ Timothy.” Eddie says the name like he used to say the names of kids who picked their noses in class in grade school. _“Rich, I swear I have never ever in my life met someone so incompetent. I want to_ ruin _whoever let him take over my project while I was gone…”_

Richie pushes one cheek closer into the pillow and listens to Eddie, voice high-pitched, ranting and insulting and beautiful. He regrets the stupid joke he’d cracked at the restaurant, of being too boring to listen to. And he doesn’t understand all the jargon of Eddie’s job, but he is so happy to listen. Because it was Eddie, and Richie liked the way he spoke almost too fast to keep up, and that he talked with his hands, chopping the air and splashing wine over his fingers and staining his shirt with it. After everything, listening to his voice felt almost like a glass of water after a long, parched day in the sun. 

Eventually though, his eyelids begin to feel heavy, and despite himself he cannot suppress a yawn. 

_“At least he’s not snoring this time,”_ Eddie says, but he smiles and looks almost fond. _“Am I boring you?”_

Richie is tempted to take a screenshot of his expression. He won’t. Eddie would only insist he delete it. His eyes water from another yawn, and he shakes his head, pushing his glasses down to rub the dampness of his eyes away. 

“Nah,” Richie says. “I actually like listening to you yap.” He doesn’t mean to sound so genuine. Probably he was so exhausted his words were becoming sloppy and unfiltered. 

_“Uh hu. Have you been sleeping?”_

“Define sleeping.” 

_“The fact, state, or condition of being asleep.”_

“OK, Merriam-Webster. Absolutely I have.” 

_“Liar.”_

“I’m wounded.” 

_“No, me.”_

Richie takes a moment. “Touché,” he says. He doesn’t think he ever learned how to use that word properly. He yawns again. The tears blur his vision. He pushes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. 

_“I’m gonna make you take naps when you visit,”_ Eddie says, serving himself a bowl of whatever gross vegetable thing he was making and sitting down at the counter to eat. 

“What, like our first grade teacher?” 

Come to think of it, they were probably too old to take school-sanctioned naps in the first grade. Mrs. Perkins probably just wanted a smoke break. Richie vaguely wonders if she’s still alive. 

_“Exactly like that,”_ Eddie says. His phone buzzes just then and he starts, spoon clattering onto the counter. His finger swipes at some notification on his phone, and when he pulls back his expression is stern, unhappy like when he is actually bothered by something and not just faking it for pretense. Richie knows him well enough to tell the minute differences in expression. 

_“I have to go,”_ Eddie says abruptly, and before Richie can ask why, _“call me later. And get some sleep tonight.”_

“Alright,” Richie says. “Sayonara.” 

_“I mean it, Rich.”_

Richie salutes him. 

_“Bye.”_

Eddie hangs up. And Richie knows something is wrong, and obviously is concerned about this, as he was about all matters pertaining to Eddie. But he is exhausted, the heavy-lidded sort, so he sends Eddie a message asking what spooked him, books himself a ticket to New York with the first airline that pops up in the search, and falls asleep thinking of him. 

These days he was always thinking about him. 

–

New York is exactly the kind of city Eddie must thrive in. Most likely unhealthily. His neuroses lended themselves well to the absolute grossness of the place. He could easily indulge in wet wipes, hand sanitizer, and excessive hand-washing to his heart's content, and Richie despite himself would actually consider it the only proper way to reside in the grimy ripeness of this city. 

The people are assholes but less maliciously and more as a simple state of being. Richie knows this, because he has been here before but also because all people know this of New Yorkers. Still he is absolutely out of his element. He too was an asshole, but in a different and far more performative way. In New York he was too soft, could barely hold his own, and definitely would be shoved around if he was just a couple inches shorter. 

He hasn’t even left the airport yet. 

Eddie is picking him up. He sent him a picture of his car because Richie didn’t know models. It was a replacement for his giant, much more Eddie-like SUV, which Richie had joked about him owning as compensation for something else, and which he had also wrecked. This had been news to Richie, stopping him mid-joke with a jolt of anxiety at the image. 

He waits outside by arrivals and sends Eddie a message with his location. He waves when he spots Eddie’s cute, constipated little face through the windshield of his replacement Subaru, which he will _not_ make an insensitive joke about. Eddie parks like a real asshole, tail sticking out into the lane, and only unlocks the door when Richie tries to pull the handle for a hot fifteen seconds and then threatens to lick the window if he doesn’t let him in. 

“You need to put your suitcase in the back,” Eddie says when Richie hops into the passenger seat. 

“I’ll just leave it here,” Richie says. He tucks his suitcase in the space where his legs are meant to be, and really he needs all the room he can get but now that he’s in he doesn’t want to get out. Mostly because Eddie is eyeing him carefully, up and down the length of his long legs shoved in front of him and then back up again. 

“It’s nearly an hour drive,” Eddie says, both hands gripping the steering wheel like he needs the clutch. Richie grins at the tiny twitch of his mouth fledging into a full smile–the rare, unrestrained sort with crinkles beside the eyes and the dimples, too. 

“No biggie,” Richie says. He desperately wants to cradle his face and press messy kisses to those dimples. Instead he looks at him in a way that must give himself away, and Eddie looks right back. Richie feels somehow like they are communicating that way, except he has no idea what the fuck Eddie is trying to say. 

At length, Eddie breaks his gaze away. 

“Missed you, too,” Richie says, meaning to joke but his voice is warm as freshly baked bread. Eddie is still smiling, smaller now, and mumbles something Richie cannot quite make out before shifting his gear into drive. He is honked at as he pulls out. 

“What was that?” Richie probes. 

“I missed you,” Eddie says, without even needing another poke. He rolls down his window to flip the bird at the guy behind him. Richie does not know what to say. He is saved by Eddie making a weird noise in his throat and asking, “are you hungry?” 

“I was very generously allowed peanuts.” 

“Gross.” 

“Were you ever actually allergic?” 

“I’m not sure yet.” 

“Bummer, can’t risk a little welcome smooch.” 

“Also gross.” 

Richie laughs, feels pink heat in his cheeks and is sort of afraid to look in the side view mirror for confirmation. What’s more, Eddie is _definitely_ flushed at the cheekbones. This could be nothing. 

“I can wait to eat.” 

“Alright,” Eddie says, merging onto the freeway like an absolute madman. “I’ll make you dinner.” 

–

Eddie leaves Richie to settle into the guest room alone, while he goes to sort out something for work and then start dinner. The room itself is small but cute, a new comforter and sheets on a queen-sized bed that takes up most of the space. A little plant sits on the bedside table, which Richie suspects he bought to liven up the room. Not much else. 

To be fair, Eddie only moved into this apartment less than a month ago. He probably hadn’t had the time for interior decorating. Richie doesn’t want to think too hard about him taking a trip for the comforter, sheets, even the plant, solely for his visit. 

Richie had offered to fly out while it was happening, to do all the heavy lifting Eddie shouldn’t have been doing himself, with the stitches and all. But Eddie said not to, that he didn’t have much to begin with and even less he wanted to take with him. Which sort of depressed Richie to think about—as a kid Eddie had been such a collector of little trinkets, which he hid like treasures from his mom as a sort of silent, unknown rebellion. 

Still, as Richie wanders the apartment while Eddie messes around in the kitchen, he can spot little bits of Eddie scattered about—carved, wooden coasters on the coffee table, a rug that looked sort of unethical and also felt great on his bare toes, a cactus, prickly and the length of his pinky, on the table by the front door where he keeps his keys and wallet when he comes home. In the kitchen, where Richie watches Eddie hunch over the counter cutting vegetables, there is a line of pans hung by size above the stove, and an oven mitt like a lobster claw hung beside them, and also a french press. 

He has unframed photographs pinned to the wall in his living room. He must have had them printed out at a CVS. Ben had insisted they take pictures in Bangor, just in case they started to forget again. These ones are from one particular night in the hotel, the seven of them cramped into one room just after Eddie had been discharged. Eddie had fallen asleep on Richie’s shoulder. Bev was blowing a kiss to the camera. Bill, a little sloppy from too much cheap beer with takeout dinner, was holding a book in one hand, reciting it aloud. 

The apartment feels like home. Or like a place becoming one. 

Richie saunters over to the kitchen, sticks his elbows on the counter and props his chin in his hands. “Can I help, Gordon Ramsey?” 

“No.” 

“I promise I won’t burn anything.” 

Eddie laughs. “Remember when you set your sweater on fire making eggs for me?” Richie does, mainly because that was the morning after he kissed him, and he set his sleeve on fire because he was not paying attention, and he wonders if Eddie knows that and said it anyway, or if he remembers at all, or if Richie should maybe remind him. 

“I’m cooking for you this time,” Eddie says before he gets the chance. “So go sit down. You can grab a beer from the fridge if you want.” 

Richie grabs a beer from the fridge, like he wants, cracks it open and plops down on the sofa as told. He takes a sip, grimaces at the taste, and scrolls through his recent messages in the group chat. He has a bombardment of notifications from when he got off the plane he hasn’t had a chance to read yet, too caught up in being around Eddie. 

**FROM: eds**

I’m picking up Richie from the airport soon. 

Eddie, Richie had discovered, texted people like an extremely boring narrator. 

**FROM: cocker staniel**

Tell him he still owes me for that movie with the body builder

Stan was, in fact, referring to Austrian-American actor, filmmaker, businessman, author, and former politician and professional bodybuilder, Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger, in Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991). Richie had been a fan. 

**FROM: eds**

Haha okay. 

**FROM: carrothead**

Send pictures! 

**TO:** **Boar Vessel 600-500 BC Etruscan Ceramic**

that movie came out before ur mom was born staniel 

**FROM: cocker staniel**

False. With interest, please 

Eddie calls out for Richie just then, before Richie can respond to that atrociously immoral demand. He gets up from the sofa with too much trouble, knees cracking like they have been for a decade now whenever he so much as pivoted. He ambles to the kitchen, where Eddie has already served up two plates and poured two glasses of wine. Richie preens at the entire setup, then picks up his fork to take a first bite. 

“Sit down first,” Eddie says, amused, when Richie chews and then makes an exaggerated, arguably elicit noise. 

He sits down as told, and Eddie follows suit. They talk stupid for a little bit while they eat. Richie shows him a few voices he’s been working on, and Eddie acts a critic but also does this thing with his lips when he’s trying real hard not to laugh when Richie starts with a Keith Morrison impression. Richie rather liked Keith Morrison. He had also been watching far too much true crime considering his past and general mental state. Still, he would like to meet the man some day, and thinks he could probably swing that if his b-list celebrity status ever reemerged from his current hack reputation. 

The conversation lulls eventually, and this would be natural if not for the fact they never could shut up around each other for long when they were kids. And maybe the silence told Richie something about that—that they were older now, that silence did not have to be so grating as it once felt, but could be enjoyed if you liked the person you were with while in it. 

Except that wasn’t it, really. Richie knows it and he thinks Eddie knows it, too. They both sensed that something wanted to be said. 

Eddie makes the first move. But even though Richie isn’t exactly sure what he wanted to hear, this isn’t it.

“Myra is keeping the apartment, and most of my belongings. We have a 50/50 split share on my bank accounts.” 

“What the hell?” 

“She filed for fault-divorce. Her lawyer is arguing spousal wrongdoing.” 

“But you didn’t cheat on her.” 

“I’m gay,” Eddie says abruptly. Richie swallows around nothing. 

“Fuck,” he says. “Isn’t that like, unethical then?” 

Eddie shrugs. “I _did_ hurt her. She deserves something for that.” 

“Not your penance, Eddie.” 

“What about you?” Eddie says. Richie thinks there might be double meaning in that question. _Do you deserve penance?_ His head aches, and his hands sweat resting in his lap.

Eddie is looking at him. He has been, Richie realizes, when he flicks his own gaze up to match. He is looking for something particular, and Richie doesn’t know what it is but he wants to give it to him. He wants Eddie to throw him a line, to tug him back overboard, but his hands are too cold to grip the rope, and he might drown. He says the first thing that comes to mind, a diversion that also sort of feels entirely relevant. 

“I’m gay, too.” 

At length, Eddie looks away. “I know,” he says. “I watched your interview.” 

Right. Of course. Richie takes a sip of his wine, which makes him sleepy but right now he has never felt more awake. He adjusts his glasses, swallows around the spit accumulated in his mouth and licks his lips. Eddie watches this, too. 

“So, um, have you been seeing anyone?” 

“What?” 

“I mean… you could find a date easy.” 

“No,” Eddie says, “I couldn’t.” 

“Dude. You’re piping hot. And I know for a fact you—” 

Richie stops himself too late, or too soon. He knew. What, exactly? That Eddie was good to be with, that Richie liked being with him, that he wanted that again. 

“About that,” Eddie says, because he was way too smart. 

“We don’t—” Richie starts. “We don’t need to talk about that.” 

“Okay,” Eddie says. “But I want to.” 

“Um, okay,” Richie begins, and is quite intent on spilling his wine all over the floor to stop this from proceeding. But just then someone knocks on the door, allowing Richie a moment to gather his scrambled wits, tuck away his trembling limbs, shove himself back together long enough to get through the present moment. 

Eddie frowns at the interruption and rises to answer the knock. At the door, he sounds like he is arguing with someone about a missing cat, or feeding plant or eating Grant. And sure, Richie doesn’t _want_ Eddie to be a cannibal, but if eating Grant saved him from this conversation, or at least delayed it long enough that he could work himself up to it, then Richie could excuse it. 

While Eddie has his conversation at the door, Richie rinses the plates and sticks them in the dishwasher. He throws down the rest of his wine in one fell swoop, then makes his way to the bathroom to get ready for bed. 

Eddie finds him there a few minutes later. He is brushing his teeth, stripped to his tee shirt and boxers now, and he should feel more bashful about this but may also be a bit wine tipsy after their third glass. Or maybe not. Maybe he is still afraid but also sort of likes how Eddie glances him up and down. 

“Hey,” Eddie says. 

“Hi,” Richie says back, his voice muffled around a mouthful of toothpaste. 

“Going to sleep?” 

Richie nods and spits in the sink. “Travel wears me out, you know?”

“Sure,” Eddie says, and rubs the back of his head. “Can we talk in the morning?” 

Richie swallows some toothpaste. “Yeah. Sure, Eds.” 

“Cool,” Eddie says. He bits his lip as though to stop himself saying more. Richie almost asks him to. Because he knows what it is like to want to say something and then not saying it, and Eddie doesn’t deserve that feeling. He almost asks, but in the end he doesn’t. 

“Night, Eds.” 

“Good night, Richie.” 

–

After this, Richie showers. He uses the little travel size shampoo and conditioner Eddie left out for him in the bathroom, like his apartment was a hotel and Richie couldn’t remember his own, which he in fact hadn’t. It was the sort for curly hair, and this makes Richie think of Eddie putting his hands in his hair, which in turn makes his gut curl with heat, and also feel far too guilty to jerk it just to get the feeling over with. 

He towels off, lays in bed for a while feeling antsy and achy and inarticulately upset. He scrolls through his own hashtag on twitter, replies to a few people. He makes notes on his phone, ideas for a bit but it’s shitty, since he is too distracted to put in the effort to make it otherwise. After a while, Richie turns off the lights, and a while after that, he falls asleep. 

He must dream. But his dreams are messy and frustrating. He wakes up, and his phone says the time is 4:12 in the morning. So he stares at the ceiling for a half hour or so, and when this fails to force him to fall back asleep he slips on his glasses and out of bed. 

The linoleum in the kitchen is cold against his bare feet. Richie grabs a glass from the cupboard and pours himself water from the kitchen sink, mouth painfully dry. Outside the window, the city has lulled somewhat but is still awake, and Richie can see flashing lights of a bar across the street, the silhouette of a couple standing by the crosswalk, a group of twenty-somethings chatting on the sidewalk. He desperately wanted to go back to sleep. 

“Richie?” 

He jolts, water splashing over the rim of his glass onto his hand. He wipes this on his shirt and looks up to where Eddie is standing by the fridge, a dark silhouette but glowing hazily from the street lights casting through the window. 

“Christ, Eddie, you scared the shit out of me.” 

“Oops,” Eddie says. Richie almost laughs but Eddie moves closer to him. He aches for him to be even closer. His hand sets the glass down on the counter beside him, of its own accord, as though in preparation to reach out. 

“Did I wake you?” Richie says. 

“I wasn’t asleep,” Eddie says. He takes a step to the left, watching Richie twist to look at him. He leans backwards, his palms pressed against the kitchen countertop, and pushes himself up to sit there. His feet kick once then dangle, a nervous gesture. 

Once, when Eddie had gotten his teeth cleaned by Went and Richie waited with him in the waiting room, he was so short his feet couldn’t touch the floor. He hit a growth spurt a few years later, shot up like a bean sprout and complained of achey limbs for months. 

Richie’s toes curl. “Do you have nightmares?” 

“Sometimes,” Eddie says. “Not tonight.” 

“Then why’re you awake?” 

“I couldn’t stop thinking about it long enough to fall asleep.” 

“About what?” 

“Don’t play dumb, Rich.” 

“It’s not morning yet, Eds.” 

Even to his own ears this sounded sort of desperate. Eddie pauses a moment, then speaks. “You’re really that desperate not to talk to me about this?” 

“It’s not you, Eddie,” Richie says, which mostly is a lie. It _was_ him. Everything was him. 

_“It’s me,”_ Eddie says, mocking that phrase. Richie almost bites back, but Eddie softens in a moment, shoulders sagging. He sighs. “It _was_ me, you know.” 

“I’m not following,” Richie says, which is also mostly a lie. 

“Rich,” Eddie says. “Remember that summer when we all went around in a circle and said what we were most afraid of?”

“Sure I do,” Richie says. That day had been one of the first among his resurfaced memories. “You said the leper.” 

“And you said clowns. But you were lying.” 

“I wasn’t.” 

“You were,” Eddie insists. “I know because I was lying, too. The leper wasn’t what I was really afraid—it was just the next best thing. I was actually afraid of what it _represented._ Do you get it?” 

“No,” Richie says. “I’m not a fucking therapist, Eddie. What are you trying to say?” 

“I'm saying... God, she pumped so much bullshit into my head, Rich. She made me afraid to live, of being dirty, of stupid made-up diseases and getting sick. But mostly I was afraid that if she found out about me she’d think I was _already_ sick. _I_ thought I was. I haven’t thought that for a long time, Richie. It was wrong. It’s _always_ been wrong.” 

Richie breathes. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. A lot to unpack there.” 

Eddie smiles pained but real. “Your turn.” 

“Christ, Eddie, I dunno. I’m scared of a lot of shit. Nuance, or whatever. I guess spiders?” 

“Okay.” _And?_

“Uh, snakes.” 

“And you like to take long walks on the beach.” 

“Asshole.” 

“Tell me something real.” 

“Christ,” Richie says, pinches his nose. Fuck it, maybe. Maybe he’ll just strip down, peel away the rind, let Eddie bite into him and taste the bitter of him. He wanted that. To be known. Eddie is watching him, big eyes blown all the way up, and Richie drinks him in. He’s so fucking parched. 

He wants to put his hands all over him. He wants to reach for him and be reached for back, to pull up the hem of his shirt and press his palm to his stomach, his chest, at the rough edges of his scarring just to be reminded he was alive. He wants to be held. 

“I was afraid I would forget,” Richie says. “And then I did.” 

Eddie says nothing. Richie feels his hand shake. 

“I told myself I wouldn’t,” Richie goes on. “I told _you_ I wouldn't and you believed me. But we were both wrong, Eds. I spent years watching people begging to be around each other, and laughing at jokes that weren’t funny, going everywhere together. They couldn’t shut up about each other. It made them crazy. _Love_ made them crazy, but they were so happy, Eddie. You could see it.” 

Eddie is watching him now, swipes his tongue over his bottom lip and Richie sees that, almost does the same. 

“It was so easy for them to find someone to love,” Richie says. “I never understood it. I made people laugh but it never meant anything. I was surrounded by people all the time but I could barely stand them. But I was still so desperate not to be alone.” His voice cracks. “And I didn’t understand _why_ until Mike called and I realized…” 

“What?” 

“That I just forgot. I’d just been wasting my life, and thinking I’d never understand what those people felt or how they found it but I knew it all along—fuck, I’m not making sense. I wanna make you laugh, Eds. I wanna go everywhere with you. I wanna brag about you to the poor guy that files my taxes. Do you know why?” 

“No,” Eddie breathes. “Tell me.” 

“Because.” And just then Eddie reaches for him, fists his hand in the hem of Richie’s sweater and pulls him forward. Richie stands in the space between his legs, spread apart to gate his hips, his hands resting and gently squeezing his thighs. “I love you,” Richie finishes, and Eddie kisses him. 

He wraps his legs around his waist easily, sitting on the counter like that, pulling them flush together. Richie cradles his face in two hands, parts his own mouth and kisses him back. “Did that answer your question?” Richie huffs out between pulling away to breathe and kissing Eddie more. 

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “I love you, too.” His pointer fingers fit behind Richie's ears, thumbs pressing either side of his cheekbones. He parts his mouth, catching Richie’s bottom lip between his own. 

“Eddie, wait,” Richie says, because as much as he would like to keep this going his brain feels pressed to understand. Eddie seems to understand this, because he leans back a little, watching Richie carefully. The way he looks at him should be reassurance enough, Richie thinks. But he wants to hear it also. 

“I love you,” Eddie says again, because he knows. “I’m not fooling around this time, Richie. I knew it back then, too. I should have let you say it. _I_ should have said it.” 

“Well, alright,” Richie says. “We worked up to it, didn't we?” 

Eddie laughs, and Richie can feel it where his chest is still pressed against him, the gentle rumble of it. “You’re my best friend,” Eddie says. “I just think I would also like you as my—” 

_“Boyfriend?”_ Richie grins. 

Eddie scoffs at that word, but he smiles all the same and then leans in to kiss Richie on the space right beside his mouth, not quite his chin or his cheek but close, the skin there soft but scruffy. This gesture is so familiar Richie almost aches with remembering. 

“Partners?” Richie goes on, when Eddie kisses him on the cheekbone. “Lovers?” Eddie kisses him on the nose. 

“One of those should work, yeah,” Eddie says, and instead of teasing him a little while longer like he probably meant to, he kisses Richie on the mouth. Richie’s hand slips to the small of his back, and he pulls Eddie forward onto him and off the counter. His legs are still wrapped around his waist, and this new height difference has Richie tilting his neck back to kiss him better. 

Eddie keeps pulling away to breathe, like he doesn’t know how to pace himself. His mouth is warm and sweet and wet, and the noises they make when tongue presses against tongue is sort of obscene, and then Eddie is shoving one hand up underneath his shirt, his other arm still wrapped around Richie’s neck so he doesn’t fall. 

Richie gasps, pulls away, presses his forehead against Eddie’s forehead. “Christ,” he says, laughing gently. 

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. He presses his lips against his temple and then tucks his head into his shoulder. His legs unwrap from around his waist and his feet plant solidly onto the ground. “I’ve been meaning to do that for a while now.”

“Christ,” Richie says again. 

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I just… I didn’t jinx it.” 

Eddie takes a moment, then smiles. His eyes sort of twinkle. Outside, the sun must be just rising after dawn, because Eddie is cast beautifully in a hazy blue. 

“No,” Eddie says. “You really didn’t.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what is,,, dialogue,,, help me 
> 
> anywhomst thank u for reading!!
> 
> i'm around @petalloso.tumblr.com or @freidegg on the tweeter app would love to chat! 
> 
> <3

**Author's Note:**

> thx for reading!


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